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July 27, 2007
Zombies in Africa
Radosh is right. The trailer for the new Resident Evil -- though totally beautiful -- is about the most racist thing I've ever seen.
July 27, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
Have you seen the trailer for the new Rambo movie? I haven't clicked on your link yet, but I can't see how it could possibly be worse than that.
Posted by: Brian Cook | Jul 27, 2007 3:49:41 PM
So... killing black zombies is racist. Hmmm... interesting theory. Stupid, but interesting.
Posted by: mcsey | Jul 27, 2007 4:09:08 PM
Hmm. There is such a thing as reading too much into something. Does it help that those zombies are clearly far more badass than your run-of-the-mill Resident Evil zombies?
Posted by: James F. Elliott | Jul 27, 2007 4:14:07 PM
So... killing black zombies is racist. Hmmm... interesting theory.
If that's all it was, that would be a discussion in itself. The worse part is that many, if not most, of the targets do not appear to be zombies at all.
Posted by: Grumpy | Jul 27, 2007 4:18:54 PM
Grumpy, can you really say that? Have you ever seen a zombie before?
Posted by: Matt Zeitlin | Jul 27, 2007 4:25:20 PM
mcsey: Don't be retarded. If every zombie in the game is black and the heroes are all white and the object of the game is to blow away every black zombie that stands between you and your next cutscene... yeah, that's racist. It may or may not be KKK-grade 'killin' me sum niggahs' racist, but it's a common dodge of the See No Evil faction of US race politics to pretend that if it's not full blown race hatred, it's not really racism.
Posted by: NBarnes | Jul 27, 2007 4:30:35 PM
Grumpy, can you really say that? Have you ever seen a zombie before?
The scarier question is, How would you really know if you had seen a zombie before?
Posted by: Brian Cook | Jul 27, 2007 4:52:35 PM
I just wanted to say, as someone who has played the rest of the series, that in the previous Resident Evil, the "zombies" were people with a weird alien parasite and thus did not look or act like traditional zombies. It was set in a backward European village, and the most of the people looked like villagers (some had been infected for longer and so had begun to look less human). But these villagers were being controlled by a Queen and so would attack on site. In that game, every zombie was from the region, and so all were white. Since this games is in Africa, it may well be that the "zombies" are all black, but I really don't think this has anything to do with crypto expressions of the white man's burden. After all, this is a Japanese game.
Posted by: JJONES | Jul 27, 2007 5:21:24 PM
One last thing, about that "job" the white character wants to see through. It's the complete destruction of a US bio-weapons developer which presumably has been intentionally infecting Africans with the alien parasite they've been experimenting on....
Posted by: JJONES | Jul 27, 2007 5:35:45 PM
After all, this is a Japanese game.
Maybe we missed the crypto-racism in the version with the all-white zombies.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 27, 2007 6:04:07 PM
Those knees jerked so hard Ezra and Radosh must both have black eyes.
Posted by: slickdpdx | Jul 27, 2007 6:07:18 PM
Yeegh.
Posted by: Erin | Jul 27, 2007 6:19:30 PM
So I assume if the protagonist was black and all the zombies were white that, of course, would be racist as well. Kill whitey!
And ya, I'm sure the gigantic Japanese corporation Capcom set out to make the most racist game ever. That's always /great/ for marketing. It's called a setting people. Sometimes I see why the wingnuts call us libtards.
Grumpy: You played any of the R.E. series before? Just about everything you kill has been infected by "something". For the first few it was a virus that made ppl zombies, for the fourth game it was some sort of brain controlling parasite, for this one the developer has said it will be neither, so you are correct they are not zombies. But being Resident Evil, I guarantee you that they are not "human".
Of course there's one other possibility... Developers Jun Takeuchi and Keiji Inafune hate black people. I suppose that could be.
Posted by: mcsey | Jul 27, 2007 6:42:06 PM
"After all, this is a Japanese game."
I think that may be a big part of this. I think natives of Japan are a bit less aware of the subtext of a small group of white people gunning down throngs of black people.
Okay, black people who've been turned into zombies. It doesn't change the content of the panoramic shots much, though.
Posted by: Kylroy | Jul 27, 2007 6:43:28 PM
-- though totally beautiful -- is about the most racist thing I've ever seen.
"Though"?
Racism is beautiful!
Posted by: Charles Murray | Jul 27, 2007 6:44:30 PM
Oddly enough, the Radosh link is blocked by my firm's hate site filtering. Apparently the trailer is so racist that I can't even read about it.
Posted by: Tom Hilton | Jul 27, 2007 7:26:55 PM
No, it's radosh.net that's filtered.
Posted by: Klug | Jul 27, 2007 8:09:14 PM
I think that may be a big part of this. I think natives of Japan are a bit less aware of the subtext of a small group of white people gunning down throngs of black people.
Maybe we're just too politically correct? Why was it okay in the other games to be set in Europe, but not okay for this game to be set in Africa?
Though I am a diehard yellow dog Democrat, I myself have met many more zombies in the Democratic blogosphere than I would have thought possible.
Posted by: jerry | Jul 27, 2007 9:05:12 PM
Normally I'm pretty insensitive to these sorts of claims but... whoah. Did anyone ever stand up during the design phase with the storyboards and say, "guys, this looks really offensive." ?
Posted by: Tyro | Jul 27, 2007 9:32:41 PM
See, this game can't actually be about killing zombies, because zombies don't exist. Same reason vampire novels can't be about vampires -- vampires don't exist either.
This means games about killing zombies and books about vampires invading England and stealing the upperclass/middleclass white women away from the upperclass/middleclass Englishmen (the basic plot of Dracula) must actually be about something else.
Translation: it's metaphor.
What that means, is it carries meaning: it carries freight. This, of course, is why we love these games and movies and books: they carry a charge. It's also why they're risky.
So, racist? No shit.
Among other things.
Posted by: delagar | Jul 27, 2007 10:33:16 PM
Pac-man doesn't exist in the real world either. It doesn't make his game a metaphor for our mortality, or a cautionary tale about yellow people and differently colored ghosts. It's a game about eating colored dots while running around a maze. You could write a college essay about it if you had to, but maybe you ought not to.
Resident Evil spoilers ahead:
I've only played the most recent of the Resident Evil games (it's fanastic!), but I think it they involve a corporation which unleashed a manmade virus on a (fictional) town called Raccoon City. Raccoon City is destroyed, supercops shoot a bunch of virus-made zombies, and the "evil corporation" is thwarted. At least one of the major corporation-affiliated antagonists survives, though, and in Resident Evil 4 (it's fantastic!) he obtains a virus-surrogate parasite. Suppose he wanted to test that, or some new zombie virus weapon? He'd probably want to move operations internationally. There are a lot of different places he could set up shop, but the Caribbean seems as natural as anywhere.
Resident Evil 4 has you shooting a lot of monster Spaniards, but the game makes it clear at the end that the villagers were a happy, pastoral bunch before being infected, and it makes everything that came before more than a little sad.
Posted by: Zack | Jul 27, 2007 11:06:30 PM
After all, this is a Japanese game.
Oh, of course! You'd never find overt racism against blacks in Japan, that's for sure!
Posted by: Steve | Jul 27, 2007 11:22:47 PM
Oh, of course! You'd never find overt racism against blacks in Japan, that's for sure!
Who can forget this classic ?
Posted by: Tyro | Jul 27, 2007 11:43:18 PM
I can see delagar did well in his women's studies deconstruction 101 courses.
Or maybe it was in he participated as group mentor at 1965 Cultural Revolution Camp.
Posted by: anon | Jul 28, 2007 12:25:39 AM
Yeah, I dunno. One could read this as racist and that would seem valid, but one could also read it as not racist and that would seem pretty valid too. I'm certainly not comfortable with it, but I am interested in my discomfort.
What's interesting to me about this is that it provokes one to examine to what extent one is afraid of the zombies, and to what extent one is afraid of black people.
I can't really get behind a ban on zombie games set in Africa, though. Seems a bit much.
It's true, though, that the fact that a Japanese company made this has no real bearing on whether or not it's racist. Japan tends to be less aggressive about their racism, but they totally have their share -- which isn't surprising, because, amazingly enough, most people don't define themselves mainly by their lack of whiteness. They have their own identities to be bigoted about.
Posted by: Mike Meginnis | Jul 28, 2007 12:41:38 AM
Look, it's not that hard. You're a white guy in Africa, the villagers turn into zombies whose special scary zombie power is not worms or blood-spewing eyeballs or becoming weird undead mutants, but, apparently, that they look and act just about exactly like rioting African villagers, and you have a job to do, which is shoot as many of these zombies (he was a zombie?) as possible. Of course it's racist! It's not the most egregious thing I've seen come out of Japan (like many countries that don't actually have to deal with significant numbers of various minorities, they can be shockingly gleeful when delving into racial stereotypes; see also: Europe) – but it is pretty obvious if you stop getting your back up for just a second and look at what is in front of you.
It looks like a pretty awesome game, though man do I suck at Resident Evils.
Posted by: brandon | Jul 28, 2007 1:17:33 AM
I'd be interested in seeing the data on this game's target audience. Are they trying to grow their customer base beyond core Resident Evil fans? One wonders.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 28, 2007 2:12:53 AM
Of course it's racist!
I'd say racially insensitive.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 28, 2007 2:35:02 AM
Weird. This game looks almost identical to it's precursor, where the zombies were ultra realistic looking Europeans who attacked you with pitch forks, torches, and other farming style implements, and that's OK. But move the scene to Africa (Carribean?), while changing nothing else, and now it's the Most Racist Thing Ever. Might as well just call it SimLynching. I'm sure the special edition will come with a free hood.
So, is Africa's past and present just so sad that it can no longer be referenced or used as the backdrop for a story? Should we remove it from our maps?
Posted by: JJONES | Jul 28, 2007 4:11:02 AM
Yeah, I think this is a bit of an overreaction. I just finished playing through Resident Evil 4, which as many have noted, features Spanish villagers with a parasitic virus incubating inside them. These zombies/cultists/whatever are pretty normal looking...right up to the point where they run at you waving a pitchfork or throwing sickles.
In other words, this is just the series moving past shuffling, moaning zombies. Maybe I wasn't paying close attention, but that trailer didn't strike me as racist.
Posted by: Mark S | Jul 28, 2007 6:06:18 AM
Look, in order for a game to be racist, it's not necessary for its designers to consciously, intentionally set down to make a game that reflects their conscious core belief that black people are inferior.
Most racism is unconscious, often even unwanted. (Google or JStor the extensive research on "aversive racism" sometime. Its effects are massive, even though the people who, say, mark an equally impressive black person's resume as less impressive than that of a white person would consciously claim to hold racist beliefs.)
Similarly, this game has an internal logic. Zombies take over a small town, must be killed. Zombies, to be scarier, look just like the people of the town. Where should we relocate the game? How about Africa! There's nothing in that logic that speaks to people who would go out and burn a cross or something.
But what they did was to create a game in which black people are subhumans that must be killed by a white hero for the greater good. The game can be racist in itself without conscious intentionality entering into the picture.
Posted by: DivGuy | Jul 28, 2007 8:23:21 AM
Obviously, in the second paragraph, that should be "would never consciously claim to hold racist beliefs."
Posted by: DivGuy | Jul 28, 2007 8:25:09 AM
Actually what we do know about RE5, is that some of the announced voice actors/characters, the baddies, are coming from RE4. Meaning that probably it's a continuation of the Los Plagas storyline.
I don't think that any racism was really intended, however it really does look bad, and I thought that when I saw the trailer. What I think was intended, is that they thought, hmmm. What would be an interesting looking environment where it would be plausible that a warlord could take over an area, doing experiments on people. Hmm. I know. Africa!
And everything just stems from that I think.
Posted by: Karmakin | Jul 28, 2007 8:26:47 AM
I didn't see anything that looked bad, at all, unless you're actively looking for it. It's a bunch of zombies attacking a hero. I do think we're in a progressive resurgance, which I strongly support. However, I devoutly hope that we can stomp out PC tendencies to avoid repeating the mistakes of the 80s.
Posted by: Marc | Jul 28, 2007 8:37:44 AM
However, I devoutly hope that we can stomp out PC tendencies to avoid repeating the mistakes of the 80s.
Ah, yes. Becuase Oberlin College tried to institute a misguided speech code, I feel compelled to defend everyone to the left of the KKK. The term "PC" quickly migrated from (certainly correct) criticism of Oberlin undergrads to a defense of the unconscious racism that is accepted in sociology and psychology as a fundamental aspect of social relations in America. Again, take a look around in the literature, the widely available studies done on "aversive racism" and unconscious racially tinged beliefs and tendencies.
When I hear "oh noes! PC excess!" I look around for the white guy defending obvious injustice. It rarely fails.
Posted by: DivGuy | Jul 28, 2007 8:52:33 AM
"Pac-man doesn't exist in the real world either."
Which might be of interest if we had a bazillion movies and novels about Pacmen and brave (white) guys defeating the Pacmen. As it is, well.
I haven't done much work with Zombie novels/movies. My work has been with vampire novels/movies. (Not, in fact, women's studies, though it's interesting that a commenter went there -- got to be whipped because I'm interested in oppression? That's a jump.) In vampire texts, what you do find is, universally, racism, fear of the Other, fears of retaliation for Colonialism, for Imperialism, rape fantasy, and fears of losing control of women. (I speak of the vampire text that follow Bram Stoker's pattern, not the Romantic/Lord Byron sort, Ann Rice's sort, which are a different strain.)
Anyway: vampire novels of Stoker's strain rose up as the British Empire was collapsing, and as feminism was rising up, and as the working classes were gaining power, and speak to the (male upper/upper middle class) anxiety of their loss of control -- that their "empire," manifest in the novel as Dracula (the foreign Other from the East) and the women (Lucy, Mina) and the subordinate (the working class men and, to some extent, Jonathon) will rebel.
Zombie novels/games are likely speaking to the same fear, here at this point in the American empire. How do they speak to our anxiety? Well, how do the (white, powerful) characters in the games/movies/books deal with the evil/rebel zombies? (Who, oh yes, I know, are mindless minions of evil -- but can I point out to you that they aren't *actually* that way? They're just drawn that way!)
Slaughtering them wholesale.
There now. Don't you feel better?
No need for nuance now.
Posted by: delagar | Jul 28, 2007 9:16:32 AM
Is there a game where nostalgic South African Nationalists can pretend that the dark-skinned Angolans and Cubans didn't kick their a**es in the "South African Border War" 20 years ago?
Now *that* would be a niche racist game market.
Posted by: El Cid | Jul 28, 2007 11:27:14 AM
While fear of the Other definitely plays a big part in zombie stories (that's probably universal among all monster stories), most everything else you mentions doesn't seem to apply to zombie stories -- which are more about death, fear of the dead, guilt about the dead, fear of being trapped, sweet Jesus get me out of this mall full of zombies I'm gonna scream. If zombie lit speaks to anxiety about something, it's mortality, not colonialism.
After several games of supercops shooting Anglo-Americans in the 'burbs and nobody saying anything, Capcom switches locations to Spain, nobody says anything about the game being anti-Hispanic, then sets the next game somewhere with black people -- now it's racist? No, of course not. Will racists get off on it? Yeah, they probably will. Will folks make political hay out of it when the game comes out? Yeah, they probably will. It's kind of a shame Capcom didn't pick a black protagonist -- that would have solved everything, right guys?
Posted by: Zack | Jul 28, 2007 11:59:24 AM
Sorry, intentionality aside, any game where a white hero wins by slaughtering identifiably non-white characters on mass is going to appeal to racism. Making the non-white characters Zombies hardly addresses that.
Will the game designers be placing a scenario in Israel anytime soon? I wonder what the response to the mass extermination of Israeli Zombies would be?
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 28, 2007 11:59:54 AM
It's kind of a shame Capcom didn't pick a black protagonist -- that would have solved everything, right guys?
Not everything. But it certainly would have made it's appeal to white racism less blatant.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 28, 2007 12:02:42 PM
The reference to women's studies is because deconstruction is one of their biggest tools to be wielded when they need to tell you what you really meant.
That is of course a disrespectful patronizing intellectually dishonest stance to take, but when they and you seem to hold proudly.
If a game comes out of nowhere, with no context, and initiates a storyline where Palestinians are killed by Jews, or Jews by Palestinians, or Whites by Blacks, or Blacks by Whites, then I think it is fair to bring up the question of racism. But it's not a cut and dry proposition. As Sanpete says, racially insensitive is not the same as racism. And there is in fact a good artistic reason to make us question our own assumptions about our own racism AND yes, our politically correct speech where we self-censor ourselves out of fear.
And if a game/movie/novel has a context that is continued in a sequel, it is reasonable and logical to extend that context to the sequel.
I have never played RE 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4. But if the storyline is about killing zombies in Europe, why can't the story be moved to Africa, Japan, Israel, Palestine, or New York City without us crying racism?
Posted by: anon | Jul 28, 2007 12:27:48 PM
My work has been with vampire novels/movies.
Wow. Is this the goth version of majoring in Folklore and Mythology? :) Does it turn out that vampire novels are about the fear of charming, more worldly eastern europeans coming to the west and seducing their women? If so, awesome. :)
These zombies/cultists/whatever are pretty normal looking...right up to the point where they run at you waving a pitchfork or throwing sickles.
This makes me understand quite a bit better how the game can have racist overtones without it being a result of conscious/overt racism on the part of the designers. It wasn't too long ago that the typical peasant rebellion involved farmers coming at the local tax enforcer with pitchforks and sickles until the Vizir/Czar/Pasha finally got tired of it and sent in the troops to have them all killed. However, most of us have long forgotten those days, though I suspect that if you showed RE 4 to a bunch of farmers in small Serbian or Russian villagers, they might find it offensive ("what? you mean the heroes in this game are the Turks/Kossacks???")
In contrast, scenes of armed whites blowing away crowds of African villages/rioters is still within living memory, if not on television, so we much more instinctively find the scenes offensive. It wouldn't surprise me if, in line with the claim from the designers that they tried to evoke Black Hawk Down, that RE 4 tried to evoke peasant rebellions.
Posted by: Tyro | Jul 28, 2007 12:37:17 PM
But if the storyline is about killing zombies in Europe, why can't the story be moved to ... Israel, Palestine, ... without us crying racism?
You're saying you wouldn't see the problem with a game set in the west bank with rock-throwing Palestinian zombies coming at you, forcing you to shoot them down?
our politically correct speech where we self-censor ourselves out of fear.
No, we "self-censor" ourselves ("now, Bob, I'm sure it would be cool, but a game centered around gunning down rock-throwing zombies in Hebron is probably not a good idea") because we don't want to act like assholes and want to take the viewpoints and perspectives of others into consideration, not merely our own narrow-minded perspectives. and experiences.
Posted by: Tyro | Jul 28, 2007 12:42:16 PM
anon thinks that calling someone a feminist is tantamount to undermining their argument. That pretty much says it all.
Posted by: DivGuy | Jul 28, 2007 1:42:38 PM
Uh, no, but again, way to go about purposefully misconstruing what other people say, another of the deconstructionists, and women's studies set's favorite tools.
So far, you're the only one here to say anything about feminism in general. I was referring to women's studies, a completely different concept.
Please, deconstruct us all some more.
Posted by: anon | Jul 28, 2007 1:46:55 PM
If a game comes out of nowhere, with no context, and initiates a storyline where Palestinians are killed by Jews, or Jews by Palestinians, or Whites by Blacks, or Blacks by Whites, then I think it is fair to bring up the question of racism.
...
And if a game/movie/novel has a context that is continued in a sequel, it is reasonable and logical to extend that context to the sequel.
Story lines and contexts are the same thing. Narratives. Yes, you can come up with some hypothetical, imaginary, unprecedented situation in which one white guy is perfectly justified in killing a mass number of people with black skin. You aren't a racist because you follow this hypothetical narrative to it's conclusion, you're a racist because you came up with the hypothetical in the first place.
That's the brilliance of deconstruction--people should be responsible not just for what they do within the stories they tell about themselves, but for the stories they choose to live in in the first place. Even if you tell yourself a story about witches stealing children at night and sacrificing them to Satan, you're still responsible for lighting a woman on fire. Even if the guy in white lab coat tells you it's for the recipient's benefit, you're still giving him dangerous electric shocks.
Do I get sent to Cultural Revolution camp too?
Posted by: Consumatopia | Jul 28, 2007 3:05:28 PM
Well, anon, you're the one who claims it's a misconstruction. I'm not sure what you're basing that claim on. I've done the research. You're just spouting claims.
(And no, I didn't "major" in vampires. Good shit. I've got my doctorate in comparative literature; classical lit, world lit, and European lit were my areas; and I work mainly in popular lit right now. Hence, yes, vampires, among other things, although linguistics is also an area I work in.)
Anyway: I don't see how zombie movies/literature can be about the fear of the dead. I say this for two reasons. One, zombies don't act like dead things.
That is, while I agree there is likely an oogie factor involved -- we've got this taboo about dead humans, so having dead humans around scares us -- this isn't the essential thing that scares us in a zombie attack. What's scary in a zombie attack is twofold: one, that we can't kill the zombies; and two, that the zombie will change us into zombies -- the recruitment factor.
(Zombie scholars can please correct me here: I am working outside my area.)
This is similar to what scares us about vampires in the classic vampire attack, of course.
Now as to the second reason why I think this can't be attached to fear of the dead: originally vampires did not act this way. Folklore vampires, previous to Byron and Stoker getting their literary paws on them, were neither relentless nor able to recruit, as our current notion of vampires can.
Folklore vampires were (a) stupid and (b) easily killed. They came to a crossroad, for instance, and could not decide which way to turn, and stood dithering until dawn, and BAM. (This is why old country roads in the old days frequently had no roadsigns at crossroads -- to confuse the vampires.) You could also kill them just by planting wild rose by your door -- the smell did them in.
And no one was turned into vampires by being fed from. You were born a vampire, by being born either on a certain day (Friday 13) or a certain way (illegitimate) or with certain signs (a caul) -- whatever. No recruiting.
It was Byron and Stoker who invent the recruiting, and unstoppable vampire, for reasons I mentioned above.
I imagine zombies have much the same history -- that is, that they start out as a much less powerful folklore model, and then get recruited as a vehicle for our cultural anxieties.
Those who know something about zombie history can talk more about this.
Posted by: delagar | Jul 28, 2007 3:29:35 PM
Man, talk about "when all you have is a hammer." delagar, you seem to know a lot about vampires, but nothing you've written so far has explained why that is relevant to zombies beyond just asserting that it is so.
Zombies don't act like dead things? Well, they move. But there are very real human fears regarding the dead -- not just the corpses, either. Ghost stories, zombie stories, burial rituals designed to help souls "move on," the restless dead, the fact that we bother to write "rest in peace" on gravestones, the popular belief that great grandpa is having a good time in heaven (and us not coming to terms with great grandpa's ultimate destiny as nothing but worm shit and pleasant memories), etc.
Look, people can't cope with death. They never have been able to. They feel guilty to survive when others have died, and it's the imagined jealousy of the dead that zombie stories play on. Whereas ghost stories often involve some specific wrong, zombies just want to eat your brain and make you as dead as them. You can't negotiate with that all-consuming, jealous hunger, which is what makes them scary.
That's why zombies are scary. Or to put it a little more honestly: that's why I think zombies are scary.
Posted by: Zack | Jul 28, 2007 4:19:33 PM
Do you get sent to Cultural Revolution Camp too? No, with your accusations of people being racist for their thoughts, it's much more likely that you and dr. delagar will be running Cultural Revolution Camp.
dr. delagar, ooh, ooh, what am I basing it on? Um, my words.... I said women's studies, you said feminists. Certainly a fine fine doctor such as yourself can understand those are two separate topics.
I think you're right too, by the way, I suspect that zombies movies are not about our fear of the dead.
WTF? This is what deconstruction gets you? And you wonder why others laugh at you and your degree in zombology?
Talk about Piled Higher and Deeper!
Posted by: anon | Jul 28, 2007 4:23:00 PM
No, with your accusations of people being racist for their thoughts,
Uh, isn't that what racism is? Sure, people can take racist actions, but when we call a person a "racist" aren't we essentially saying that the person holds hostile prejudices based on race? In fact, the defense of RE5 is that while the designers might not harbor racist feelings/thoughts, they still managed to create something that is pretty darn racially offensive, making it merely "racially insensitive". So if you're not a racist if you don't harbor racist thoughts, and you're not a racist if you do harbor racist thoughts, then who are the racists?
anon, delgar might be misguided about his interpretations of zombies, but he's interesting. You manage to be both wrong and vapid.
Posted by: Tyro | Jul 28, 2007 4:35:52 PM
When I hear "oh noes! PC excess!" I look around for the white guy defending obvious injustice. It rarely fails.
It rarely fails that you see what your predetermined conclusions told you to see?
I guess if that sort of filter is working for you, you should go for it. The rest of us would consider yours statement to be an admission of your own bigotry.
Posted by: anon | Jul 28, 2007 4:45:27 PM
Actually Tyro, I don't know of anyone that is convicted of racism due to their thoughts. As far as I know, it is their actions.
But I for one welcome our new mind reading overlords. It ranks right up there with speech policing.
There are four lights.
Posted by: anon | Jul 28, 2007 4:47:55 PM
Actually Tyro, I don't know of anyone that is convicted of racism due to their thoughts. As far as I know, it is their actions.
Anon you're being ridiculous. Racism is an ideology. Hence, the "ism" at the end of the word. Ideology is nothing but systemitized thought. That is why it isn't illegal to be a racist.
What is illegal are certain forms of racial discrimination. Some forms of racial descrimination are as legal as racism itself. That's why all white racist groups like the KKK get police protection for their events.
No one here is talking about locking up people for their thoughts other than you. The significant issue is whether or not it can be accurately said that this game will appeal to racist sentiments. If it does, then I think it can be described as functionally racist.
Actively discouraging an idea is not the same as outlawing it.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 28, 2007 7:19:30 PM
Someone already may have said this, but I think I read when I was a young supernatural freak that zombies are Haitian in origin and there's a theory that the terror is the though of being a slave in the afterlife as well as during life. The Romero zombie is a variation of the original legend. Originally zombies were corpses reanimated to serve a wicked sorcerer. By the way, a lot of the voodoo horror tales derived from southern elite whites fear of what blacks were up to away from the overseer's lash. Zombie lore, I believe, entered our mainstream with often racist tales from US soldiers returning from Haiti.
Posted by: idabw | Jul 28, 2007 7:50:53 PM
So, I hesitate to be ridiculous, but I think the idea of "functional racism" is doing the heavy lifting for me. If the standard is that something which appeals to racists is functionally racist, then is any all-white couple functionally racist? I mean, clearly this is absurd. Have I mischaracterized the idea of functional racism?
Posted by: Zack | Jul 28, 2007 8:05:18 PM
There's nothing in that logic that speaks to people who would go out and burn a cross or something.
I don't think this in itself shows aversive racism.
When I hear "oh noes! PC excess!" I look around for the white guy defending obvious injustice.
What's the obvious injustice here?
any game where a white hero wins by slaughtering identifiably non-white characters on mass is going to appeal to racism
Right, which is one reason I think the charge of insensitivity, or perhaps negligence, applies.
Yes, you can come up with some hypothetical, imaginary, unprecedented situation in which one white guy is perfectly justified in killing a mass number of people with black skin. You aren't a racist because you follow this hypothetical narrative to it's conclusion, you're a racist because you came up with the hypothetical in the first place.
That doesn't follow. You'd still have to explain why every possible story of a white guy killing a bunch of blacks is racist.
Even if you tell yourself a story about witches stealing children at night and sacrificing them to Satan, you're still responsible for lighting a woman on fire.
Holy shit. You serious? Maybe I'm missing your point.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 29, 2007 12:15:23 AM
Actively discouraging an idea is not the same as outlawing it.
What is happening is that the idea being discouraged is a game originally set in Europe that moves to Africa for its sequel. It is being discouraged with the claim that to move it to Africa is racist.
The label racist itself is a pretty damning statement.
The result is that the idea is not being discouraged with education and insight but with name calling and shame.
If that's not a picture poster of political correctness, I don't know what is.
Add to that Dr. delagar's insistence that it and we are racist for liking zombie movies which must be about oppressing foreigners and can't be because we are afraid of death (I wonder if he ever read anything about Haitian culture..., but since he has a ph.d in zombology I know he must have.) And then add in DivGuy who assails white guys even as he makes a post railing against bigotry.
Please don't tell me that you folks are making an intelligent argument against racism. You are certainly acting as speech police. You are advocating thought police. You are using trump cards of labels of "racism" which of course no sane person would want to defend.
That's not argument. That's logical fallacy. That's abuse.
I agree with you that it works. But it is not argument.
Posted by: anon | Jul 29, 2007 12:24:36 AM
If that's not a picture poster of political correctness, I don't know what is.
If calling that video racist is the poster child of political correctness, we must not be doing too bad.
It's possible that the Cultural Revolution was way worse than you are imagining. I mean, who's really guilty of hyperbole or name calling here--me for calling the video racist, or you for equating us with the most bloodthirsty of Maoists?
Posted by: Consumatopia | Jul 29, 2007 12:33:03 AM
That doesn't follow. You'd still have to explain why every possible story of a white guy killing a bunch of blacks is racist.
Let me phrase it differently. If you tell a story about a person in a bizarre situation in which the right thing for a white dude to do is to kill a whole bunch of black people, it's no defense at all to shout "but the dude was in a Bizarre Situation (e.g. zombies)". The author is responsible the choice of the Bizarre Situation.
Holy shit. You serious? Maybe I'm missing your point.
I hope this is just the fault of my awkward writing, so let me rephrase. Peasants who burned witches frequently convinced themselves that the people they hated had satanic powers and killed children. This delusion, fueled by the resentment and contempt (they believed it only because they wanted to), does nothing to excuse their actions, the arguments of C.S. Lewis notwithstanding.
Posted by: Consumatopia | Jul 29, 2007 1:21:40 AM
The author is responsible the choice of the Bizarre Situation.
Sure, but that choice may or may not be racist or otherwise wrong. In this case, if the choice was to carry on the game from Spain to Africa, there's nothing inherently wrong about the choice either to have the game originally set in Spain (or wherever it was before that), nor the choice to move on to Africa. You can argue that it's reckless with regard to the ramifications, possibly worse (i.e. we don't know if it was racist but it may have been), but that's about it.
The witch burning thing does offer some insight (which I didn't get). As you seem to imply, the burners are responsible for any bad faith involved in their delusions (e.g. anger or hate distorting the evidence, or negligence in considering the evidence), but if they had good faith beliefs leading to the burnings (which may or may not be possible), then they aren't culpable. At least that's the logical extension of how we normally consider moral guilt and innocence.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 29, 2007 2:38:34 AM
"about the most racist thing I've ever seen"
You've led a very sheltered life, Ezra.
On the racism issue, I have to say that I don't find it terribly convincing. I can understand why a lot of people would see a white character shooting lots of black characters and go "Urrgh" but I don't think there's any Intent going on here and I personally am far from convinced that there's some sort of "structural" or "objective" or "functional" (or whatever) racism going on.
The game is basically the seventh in the series (if you just count the standard ones). Of those seven, six have primarily involved American zombies (and at least two have positive black characters in them) and one has been set in Europe. As far as I can see, the only thing that has happened here is that the developers have tried to stop the thing going stale by shifting the setting outside of the USA/Western Europe. I suppose they could have gone for the Middle East, Asia or Latin America, but if they'd gone for the Middle East, presumably it would have been the "Most Islamophobic Thing Ever" or if they'd gone for Asia presumably it would have been the "Most Stoking A New And Unnecessary Cold War With China Thing Ever", or in the case of Latin America "The Most Propagandizing For The Minutemen Thing Ever".
I suppose there's always Australia.
A lot of people seem to have taken umbrage at the fact that the zombies shown in the trailer move and look a lot more like ordinary humans than previous incarnations. This is true, but as far as I can tell it's part of an evolutionary shift (it could be seen in a less advanced stage in RE4) away from the George Romero style zombie and towards the 28 Days Later style. In fact, I recall it was announced that RE5 would basically be a 28DL setup just after RE4 was released. One can argue that the overlap of the African setting and the more "human" zombies is unfortunate, but I really don't see a plot to "dehumanise the Other" going on here.
I suspect that this will not be the last game in the Resident Evil series and on the basis of the track record, the odds are good that the next game and most future games will - like the vast majority of the franchise - involve white zombies.
Posted by: Anthony C | Jul 29, 2007 8:34:41 AM
You can argue that it's reckless with regard to the ramifications, possibly worse (i.e. we don't know if it was racist but it may have been), but that's about it.
That's exactly all I need.
For what it's worth, I don't see much ethical difference between "racist" and "racially insensitive", since the reason being racist is morally wrong not merely intellectually wrong is that it represents a failure of empathy (sensitivity) for your fellow human beings. Whether that's because one thinks whites are superior to blacks or you simply don't care about blacks doesn't matter very much to me. I'm not certain that the two traits are psychologically distinct, even if they are logically distinct.
As you seem to imply, the burners are responsible for any bad faith involved in their delusions (e.g. anger or hate distorting the evidence, or negligence in considering the evidence), but if they had good faith beliefs leading to the burnings (which may or may not be possible), then they aren't culpable.
Might we agree that for a more severe action, a greater degree of evidence and more effort to confirm that evidence are morally required?
Once you start talking about good faith and bad faith, you're well on the way to being a deconstructionist like the rest of us.
Seriously, we all know that critical deconstruction and political correctness become completely absurd with great frequency, but I'm just arguing against anon's apparent point of view that they're always absurd.
Posted by: Consumatopia | Jul 29, 2007 9:51:32 AM
I get that it's nice to believe movies are just movies and games are just games and we burned witches because we really thought they were witches. I see how that can be a comforting worldview -- how everything is exactly what it appears to be, so we can put it on cruise control and jam on down the highways of our life.
What I don't get it how anyone can still cleave to this conception of reality anymore. Good shit. Haven't we fucked up things enough with that shit? Start examining your lives, already! It's nothing to me where you start. If you have to start with zombies, start there. Just start.
Posted by: delagar | Jul 29, 2007 10:31:49 AM
Guys, it's a white law enforcement officer firing into a crowd of black zombies. I mean, yes, they're zombies, but it's a white law enforcement officer firing into a crowd of Africans in a township setting. This strikes me as more or less equivalent to a game set in the American South where you play a firefighter, firing a hose into a crowd of blacks. I'm not saying there's racist intent, not least because that's a tough case to prove, but utter ignorance of the setting's history doesn't leave me optimistic for the cultural sensitivity of the rest of the game.
Posted by: Jon O. | Jul 29, 2007 12:15:11 PM
Might we agree that for a more severe action, a greater degree of evidence and more effort to confirm that evidence are morally required?
Sure. Might we then agree that, as creating a video game is a trivial action except that it pays the bills for the folks who make it, less evidence of "good faith" is necessary? We are asking for evidence the makers of the game do not owe us. We are not entitled to their thoughts any more than they are entitled to our money.
I don't mean to say that it's not worth questioning the motives of other people or even of ourselves, rather that (unlike in a witch burning) there is no justification which needs to be made, because there is no victim whose rights are being trampled -- nobody is being killed, robbed, raped, assaulted, imprisoned, etc. I understand that there are questions here worth exploring beyond the comparison to witch burning -- but the witch burning comparison has gone about as far as it can go.
Jon O., get with it. We're talking about witches and deconstructionism now. The thread about Resident Evil 5 is that-a-way.
Posted by: Zack | Jul 29, 2007 12:24:22 PM
So, I hesitate to be ridiculous, but I think the idea of "functional racism" is doing the heavy lifting for me. If the standard is that something which appeals to racists is functionally racist, then is any all-white couple functionally racist? I mean, clearly this is absurd. Have I mischaracterized the idea of functional racism?
Well, to begin with, a game designed for the specific commercial purpose of appealing to the largest audience possible is categorically different from two people's marital or sexual relationship. To sharpen the distinction, it's similar to comparing the mere existence of white people to the historical fact of white supremacy and saying the that there is no meaningful distinction to be made between the two.
Or, to attempt a different mode of illumination, our popular culture used to be filled with crude racist caricatures. Their racist character had nothing to do with the intent of their creators and purveyors. Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, the filmic stereotypes portrayed by Mantan Moreland and Stepin Fetchit weren't put forward for the purpose of fomenting racism. They were put forward in order to sell stuff. Does that mean that they weren't functionally racist?
Or to present a starker example, the Director D.W. Griffith vehemently denied to his last breath that he ever intended to promote racial intolerance with his film Birth of a Nation. He even wrecked his career by producing the film Intolerance in order to vindicate himself. Is anyone going to deny that is functionally racist, regardless of Griffith's intent?
Now going back to your question about white couples. It's certainly true that the abstract symbol of white couples appeals to white racist sentiment. However, unless a specific white couple can be equated to a mass marketed symbol, I don't think you have much of a point.
What is happening is that the idea being discouraged is a game originally set in Europe that moves to Africa for its sequel. It is being discouraged with the claim that to move it to Africa is racist.
No. What is being said is that a game, whatever it's setting, in which a white hero, whom the player is required to identify with, massacres identifiably black folks on mass in order to win, appeals to violent racist sentiments. Ignoring this and substituting your own conception isn't much of an argument either.
You are certainly acting as speech police. You are advocating thought police. You are using trump cards of labels of "racism" which of course no sane person would want to defend.
Nonsense. No one here has suggested arresting anyone or that this is in any sense a police matter except yourself. People have every right to voice objections to speech and ideas based on their content. Free speech and free thought do not imply immunity from criticism and such criticism doesn't imply that the critics are totalitarians or authoritarians. Your suggestion otherwise, while imaginative, is loony.
One of the interesting things to emerge from this discussion is how many folks seem to think that racism is purely a matter of conscious intent. As though racism were soley a question of innate character flaws rather than also being a sociological and mass ideological force. The prevalent notion seems to be that if a particular individual isn't consciously racist then no action taken or opinion expressed by them can have a racist character. This notion can't be sustained in light of both practical and historical experience.
I must say though, that I find Delagar's deconstruction of Stoker's vampire myth to be unhelpful on a number of points. To begin with, few contemporaries would have described the British Empire as "collapsing" at the time Stoker's novel was published (1897) and few historians would make that claim today. There's precious little evidence in the novel to support fears of rebellion by either the English lower classes or women as personified by Jonathan and Mina Harker, both of whom are staunchly middle class, "respectable" characters.
This isn't to say that societal anxieties aren't embedded in the text of Dracula but they are far more reflective of insular Victorian obsessions with invasion by continental influences, venereal disease, sexuality, insanity and the impact of science and modernity than the overtly political concerns that Delagar points to.
I suppose you could argue that such obsessions were the product of the Imperial character of British society but that is an argument that can't be made soley on the text of Dracula alone and it is one founded largely on supposition and assumption rather than testable hypothesis. The assertion that racial anxieties are at work in the novel seems to rely on a conflation of traditional intra European notions of race (what today is popularly referred to as ethnicity) and the color based racism engendered by European colonialism.
In any event, it is not necssary to delve deeply into such murky waters. The game itself and our own history are sufficient grounds for the discussion.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 29, 2007 1:14:36 PM
WB Reeves, I am sorry, but I still don't understand "functional racism."
As regards Birth of a Nation, personally I am inclined to not believe Mr. Griffith on this point. However, if I were to accept that he had no racist intent in making the film, then I would say that the film is not racist. Partly I am hesitant to apply a word like that to a thing instead of a person, I think. I do think that Birth of a Nation has fomented racism, stirred up racism, sustained racism, and that it is an undeniably awful thing, but I don't think that makes it racist in the sense that I understand racism. I accept it being called racism as an embodiment and extension of the author's (Griffith's) racism, but that is already figurative language. I might accept it being called "functional racism" if I knew what the hell that meant. But I still don't see, if we were to believe Mr. Griffith that his intentions, all the way down to his bones, were not racist, how Birth of a Nation is functionally racist while a pretty white couple is not. So for the time being I am going to reject the idea of functional racism. You say there is a categorical difference -- what is it, exactly? There is a meaningful distinction here, but it's not that one is "functionally racist" and the other isn't, unless "functionally racist" is just code for "seriously awful, dude."
Honestly curious.
Posted by: Zack | Jul 29, 2007 3:15:37 PM
Might we then agree that, as creating a video game is a trivial action except that it pays the bills for the folks who make it, less evidence of "good faith" is necessary?
My point about witch burnings was just that actions and works can and should be evaluated by things other than their stated, internal logic. That's not dependent on the severity of the action at all. If the game designer is entitled to their thoughts, I'm entitled to mine, and I think the game trailer was racist. I'm not taking away their right to make games or think thoughts anymore than you're taking away my right to have opinions about trailers.
What we have here is some strange oversensitivity, in which Ezra's seat of the pants judgment that something is very racist (and the prima facie case is pretty damn good--just press play) apparently has more consequences than a globally distributed multi-million dollar media product. At least that's what I'm seeing here--way more rage directed at anyone who thinks the game is racist than towards the game. Sort of reverse bank shot political correctness or something.
Posted by: Consumatopia | Jul 29, 2007 3:28:26 PM
That's exactly all I need.
For what? It doesn't warrant the charge of racism.
the reason being racist is morally wrong not merely intellectually wrong is that it represents a failure of empathy (sensitivity) for your fellow human beings
That can certainly be a very good reason for it to be morally wrong, but it's hardly the only or clearly most important one. It can matter a great deal why one is insensitive; some causes are easier to fix than others, some more directly tied to more harmful behavior than others, some are more directly offensive to their objects than others, etc. Ignorance is more tractable than hatred. Insensitivity and an irrational hatred or prejudice are logically and psychologically distinct.
Might we agree that for a more severe action, a greater degree of evidence and more effort to confirm that evidence are morally required?
Yes, and that definitely applies to executions of all kinds.
I think anon has a general complaint about how a certain strain of feminism applies deconstructive techniques and uses more general examples to illustrate the problems he sees.
Delagar, I don't think your mode or level of examination is more fruitful than that of others.
It's certainly true that the abstract symbol of white couples appeals to white racist sentiment. However, unless a specific white couple can be equated to a mass marketed symbol, I don't think you have much of a point.
The video game isn't an abstract symbol either, and not marketed as one. Marilyn Monroe appeals to a lot of cross-dressers, but she and her promoters weren't functional cross-dressers, or engaging in functional cross-dressing. It's fair enough to point out that the game would appeal to racism, offend blacks, and so on. Calling it functional racism on that account is problematic.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 29, 2007 4:28:29 PM
Zack,
Are you seriously suggesting that you see no meaningful distinction between a mass-marketed commodity or advertisement and two anonymous people who happen to sleep together?
As for the assertion that racism is defined by intention, I think I've made it plain why this is a false standard. Perhaps you could explain how the racist caricatures that have populated our cultural history aren't racist since, as I pointed out above, the vast majority of these weren't created with the intention of fomenting racism but with the intent of making money?
What you are ignoring is the fact that whether a person adopts a racist opinion or attitude from a consciously racist mindsetm, or simply without thought as a popularly accepted notion, doesn't alter the content of the attitude or opinion. Whether they are acting from malign intent or from ignorance may effect how we react to the individual in question, but it has no effect on the idea or attitude itself.
Take Birth of a Nation Are you really willing to argue that its warped tale of degenerate, subhuman blacks and mulattos bent on the rape of white womanhood being defeated by the heroic and noble KKK would cease to be racist if Griffith could be demonstrated to have been deluded about the nature of his own motives? Do you really believe that the objective content of ideas and actions are determined by the subjective motivations behind them?
If you do, then I'd suggest that by your standard all discussion of ideas an opinions is a waste of time. There'd be no point since, unless you were psychic, you would have no real idea of the meaning of anything being said.
Functional racism isn't really that difficult a concept. It can be compared to, say, functional solipsism. One need not know the definition of solipsism to be engaged in it. The reality preceeds the word, not the reverse.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 29, 2007 4:29:23 PM
The racist images of blacks you refer to, the ones that were clearly racist at least, were racist because, as a whole, they were in fact rooted in and reflective of racism. When you say individual artists didn't intend that, it doesn't matter. Those images didn't spring up individually each in its own unconnected context due only to the unqiue intent of the artist; they were the way they were because of mass racism.
Being deluded about your motives doesn't make you not racist. If Griffith was moved by racism, then he was a racist, and if the relevant parts of his film were formed by racism, then it was racist. No need to bring function into it.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 29, 2007 4:46:27 PM
Being deluded about your motives doesn't make you not racist. If Griffith was moved by racism, then he was a racist, and if the relevant parts of his film were formed by racism, then it was racist. No need to bring function into it.
Except of course that Zack, in arguing that conscious intention determines whether something is or isn't racist, explicitly rejects your reasoning. This renders your point, while a fair one, superfluous.
There is also the question of institutional racism, wherein a policy, rooted in racism, may be carried out rote by subsequent generations completely unaware of and uninfluenced by the original motivation. Correlatively, a policy may have no overt racist motivation and yet produce a racist result.
"Functional racism" expresses the recognition that racism is as much a matter of practical outcomes as it is one of conscious prejudice.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 29, 2007 5:14:49 PM
This renders your point, while a fair one, superfluous.
It may not apply to Zack's line of thought, but it's relevant to my point, which is that function isn't a defining factor in racism.
Institutional racism only exists where there is the continuing influence of racism, even if in no other way than that racism was the cause of the institutional practice. It's true that we only care, or care most, when the results are also bothersome, but that isn't what makes it racist.
I see the appeal of an idea like "functional racism," but it confounds irrational hatred or prejudice and the effects flowing from it with similar effects produced by other causes. That distinction matters.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 29, 2007 6:04:42 PM
I get that it's nice to believe movies are just movies and games are just games and we burned witches because we really thought they were witches. I see how that can be a comforting worldview -- how everything is exactly what it appears to be, so we can put it on cruise control and jam on down the highways of our life.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
If you want us to deconstruct EVERYTHING, I think you need to provide some evidence that such an approach is reality based, is worth the effort, and is not subject to TYPE I and TYPE II errors.
In the meantime, what I don't get is how anyone can still cling to deconstruction anymore. Good shit. Haven't we fucked up things enough with that shit? Start examining your OWN life, already, and leave mine out of it, until shortly before my swinging arm hits your nose. If you insist on setting your intellect aside and becoming a zombie to an unscientific, unfalsifiable notion of deconstruction and political correctness, leave the rest of us out of it.
Your way lies madness and interminable and manufactured offense with other people. And it justifies the Cultural Revolution, Women's Studies Revisionism, Speech Codes, and the Reagan/Bush Conservative Christianist backlash.
Get over your English Lit, and your third rate psych degree all ready.
P.S. Doctor Zombology Thought Police, did you ever read Wade Davis?
Posted by: anon | Jul 29, 2007 6:10:14 PM
I see the appeal of an idea like "functional racism," but it confounds irrational hatred or prejudice and the effects flowing from it with similar effects produced by other causes. That distinction matters.
Yes the distinction matters. It's precisely that distinction that "functional racism" encompasses. Your construction presumes that "irrational hatred" is essential to racism. It is not.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 29, 2007 6:17:22 PM
Your way lies madness and interminable and manufactured offense with other people. And it justifies the Cultural Revolution, Women's Studies Revisionism, Speech Codes, and the Reagan/Bush Conservative Christianist backlash.
Anon, this is utterly incoherent. You may as well blame introspection, critical reason, education and thought itself for these ills.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 29, 2007 6:23:03 PM
WBR, you can't preserve a distinction by "encompassing" the things to be distinguished in one term. That obscures the distinction, which is the point.
I don't presume irrational hatred or prejudice is essential to racism; I look in dictionaries and observe the uncontroversial uses of the term, as well as the useful distinctions relevant to it, to determine that.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 29, 2007 6:34:15 PM
Sanpete, functional racism distinguishes between intentional racism and racist outcomes where intention is not a factor. Unless you can give a concrete example of what you're talking about, its difficult to see your point.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 29, 2007 6:49:59 PM
Introspection is an act of reasoning about oneself.
Deconstruction is an act of me telling you what you meant and manufacturing evidence to show that. It is unfalsifiable. It is bullshit.
I left out your critical reasoning -- I suspect from what I've read here, that it is bullshit as well.
Deconstruction and Identity Politics are absolutely what is behind "political correctness."
Free speech and ugly speech and more free speech are absolutely what is behind critical reasoning and intellectual process.
YMMV, I suspect it varies wildly.
Posted by: anon | Jul 29, 2007 7:23:05 PM
OK, WBR, I see better now what you're about, I think. I referred to your example of institutional racism, which you regard as a case where your idea of functional racism is called for, to show that intention, or as I say, irrational prejudice or hatred, is indeed an essential factor in how we use the term, even if it isn't present intention. It isn't institutional racism if it doesn't have its roots in irrational prejudice or hatred, even if the function may be similar.
I take it you only intend "functional racism" to apply to non-intentional cases, even though intentional racism typically also has the function. That may be potentially confusing, but it would preserve the distinction between present intent and effect. It wouldn't distinguish between function that grows out of past racist intent and function that doesn't grow out of any racist intent, which is I think the distinction we normally rely on. I think we do that, as a rule, in part because "racism" is a highly charged term, and that charge comes in large part from the ties to irrational hatred and prejudice, which imply culpability (as discussed above). When we divorce it from that element, it's cheating, in a way, by borrowing connotative force from those ties without any longer being tied to them. In the case of instituitional racism, we blame the institution because of its ties to those things.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 29, 2007 7:34:44 PM
I have to admit that I have always thought that citizens of the United States that argue against Free Speech are actually very brave.
Very few of us have the guts to take such a stance that goes against the grain of everything our founders and history have taught us.
Well done, Dr. Zombology Thought Police!
Posted by: anon | Jul 29, 2007 7:43:12 PM
I've got a lot of disagreements with some arguments presented here, but I'm cutting to the chase.
I see the appeal of an idea like "functional racism," but it confounds irrational hatred or prejudice and the effects flowing from it with similar effects produced by other causes. That distinction matters.
I'd agree that it confounds it, I don't agree that the distinction is all that helpful.
Consider when orchestras starting making auditions blind--so that evaluators couldn't see the candidates--and the number of women making the cut soared. It seems like that's on a hazy line between intentional and functional sexism--it's extremely unlikely that any evaluator actually consciously chose to favor men over women. With far less benefit of a doubt than we would give Capcom, we can rule out that evaluators knowingly favored a male candidate over a superior female one.
But knowingly or not, they most certainly were biased. They were sexist, pure and simple. Yet, it doesn't at all seem like the kind of sexism that could be cured by greater education or eradication of ignorance--in fact, it could only be cured by ignorance--by blindness.
Lots of psychological studies have shown us that our conscious expressions of our intentions are fallible--almost as though consciousness and interior monologue, to the extent that they are real, exist more to convince other people of our intentions rather than to actually arrive at a wise course of action.
So there's a distinction here. But from the point of view of solving the problem, I think you'll find it to be a red herring.
Posted by: Consumatopia | Jul 29, 2007 8:33:18 PM
Anon, the only one attacking free speech here is yourself. You do so by attacking the right of criticism as though it were the equivilant of sending folks off to the re-education camp. What you apparently want is to be free of any criticism you dislike, which necessarily requires limiting the free speech of others.
Deconstruction is an act of me telling you what you meant and manufacturing evidence to show that. It is unfalsifiable. It is bullshit.
I have an extremely limited tolerance for Po-mo theory but this statement makes it abundantly plain that you have no idea what you are talking about.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 29, 2007 8:40:40 PM
I think we do that, as a rule, in part because "racism" is a highly charged term, and that charge comes in large part from the ties to irrational hatred and prejudice, which imply culpability (as discussed above).
Intention implies culpability. But culpability does not imply intention. Negligence also implies culpability. You're still culpable for unintentional functional racism if you were negligent in failing to see its functional racism.
(Question--would you call the sexism of non-blind orchestral auditions intentional or negligent?)
When we divorce it from that element, it's cheating, in a way, by borrowing connotative force from those ties without any longer being tied to them.
I think it's cheating to say that intentional racism is the only kind we're culpable for.
Posted by: Consumatopia | Jul 29, 2007 8:49:29 PM
You do so by attacking the right of criticism as though it were the equivilant of sending folks off to the re-education camp
No one is attacking the right of criticism. In fact what we are attacking is your nonsensical labeling of a game with the fighting label of racism. There was no critique made in the Dr. Zombology et. al., looks like racism therefore it must be racism.
In fact it is you Reeves that is fighting my criticism and the others here of your intellectually dishonest acts.
Discussing how the game may be racially insensitive, if it is, and what that might mean is an intellectual argument. Stating as a matter of fact that this is the most offensive racist thing ever to behold is not intellectual argument. Going on to state that if it looks like racism in some circumstances is not intellectual argument. Going further to decry as Dr. Zombology did that we haven't all embraced the theology of her deconstructionist movement and worn our own hair shirts is not intellectual argument.
It is from your non-intellectual arguments that we conclude that people who use the word "niggardly" are racist and should be fired.
I love your inversion and projection that somehow I am the one against free speech because I stand up to object your label of racism on anything your little winky dink may point to.
Posted by: anon | Jul 29, 2007 9:11:39 PM
Consider when orchestras starting making auditions blind--so that evaluators couldn't see the candidates--and the number of women making the cut soared. It seems like that's on a hazy line between intentional and functional sexism
This is one reason I choose to speak of irrational prejudice and hatred rather than intention (which term I've used here with WBR because he seems to prefer it). I don't see this case as hazy at all. It reveals sexism, based in irrational prejudice against women. That people weren't admitting it or weren't aware of it didn't make not an irrational prejudice.
Yet, it doesn't at all seem like the kind of sexism that could be cured by greater education or eradication of ignorance--in fact, it could only be cured by ignorance--by blindness.
It can indeed be cured that way, but blindness is far easier. That's not always an option.
I think it's cheating to say that intentional racism is the only kind we're culpable for.
I don't say that. I think the makers of the game can be culpably negligent but not racist. One reason to preserve the distinction is that negligence is typically not regarded as having the same culpability as irrational prejudice and hatred. One reason is that prejudice and hatred are directed against people in a way that negligence per se isn't. (Negligence can be combined with or caused by prejudice or hatred, of course.)
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 29, 2007 9:41:34 PM
Dr. Zombology? What were you saying about name calling and shame?
anon, you're smarter than this. Calm down and you'd argue better.
Posted by: Consumatopia | Jul 29, 2007 9:47:54 PM
So there's a distinction here. But from the point of view of solving the problem, I think you'll find it to be a red herring.
Except that intention is used as a means for derailing any fruitful discussion of race in our society. Any time racism is raised in the discourse it quickly devolves into questions of intentionality, just as it has in this thread. Rather than dealing with the simple fact that we have a game where a white hero mows down black people and the implications of that, we indulge in an intellectual seance over whether the game's corporate purveyors or their customers are consciously racist. A goodexample of elevating subjective perceptions above material outcomes.
I don't know if you have any direct experience of living in a society where white supremacy was enforced by law but if you had you might better understand my point. Contrary to what you might expect, the white population was not united in an obsessive, malignant hatred of non-whites. In fact, that element was a minority. What united the white population was a defense of their traditional social and economic privileges. There was no shortage of people who paid lip service to racial comity and fair dealing or tut tutted the "excesses" of groups like the Klan.
In fact, the existence of such groups allowed the majority of the white population a negative example, in comparison to which they could describe themselves as "racial moderates" or "friends of the negro". Such "friendship" seldom extended as far as actually challenging the white supremacist order though.
A classic example of this was the "mammy" syndrome. This consisted of someone with a clearly racist outlook asserting that they were'nt racist because they "loved" the "mammy" who'd cared for them as a child. After all, "true" racists make no exceptions. I came close to blows once with a guy who ranted obscenely about "niggers" but teared up at the thought of his "dear, sweet mammy".
There are other variations of course, including "our maid was part of the family" and "some of my best friends are..."
The point is that subjective racism, like every other human behavior, doesn't exist as an absolute but as a continium. It stretches from mere prejudice to virulent hatred. Making subjective intent the standard for what is or is not racist requires that we either treat an unobtrusive private prejudice as the equivilant of the public advocacy of a David Duke or Tom Metzger, or that we draw an arbitrary line and define only the far extremes of such behavior as racist. This despite the fact that all these behaviors and attitudes contribute to the sum total of racism in a society.
Then we have to consider the opportunist element that harbors no actual prejudice but cynically finds it expedient to pander to racist sentiments. Such "technically non-racist" folks can be found in every sector of society.
All this leaves aside the question of institutional racism, which requires no active racial animus whatever, only a complacency towards the status quo.
I didn't mean to go on at such length but this is something that I have strong convictions about. Treating racism as though it were an exclusively spiritual, as opposed to a social malady has been, in my opinion, a direct cause of our failure to cure the systemic ills that it has produced. As long as we behave as though having a "pure" heart renders one incapable of commiting a racist act or enabling racism, we aren't likely to make much headway.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 29, 2007 10:07:31 PM
anon, you're smarter than this...
I thank you, but at this point in my life, I have to acknowledge that I think you're mistaken.
But Dr. Zombology dot ThoughtPolice said it herself that his degree is in Zombology (though it's not clear she has ever read about Haitians Voodoo)
That's not godwin like shaming, like calling someone a racist clearly is, that's just mockery.
Posted by: anon | Jul 29, 2007 10:14:55 PM
In fact it is you Reeves that is fighting my criticism and the others here of your intellectually dishonest acts.
I've committed no such acts, otherwise you would have cited one rather than making an empty, fact free accusation.
Discussing how the game may be racially insensitive, if it is, and what that might mean is an intellectual argument. Stating as a matter of fact that this is the most offensive racist thing ever to behold is not intellectual argument. Going on to state that if it looks like racism in some circumstances is not intellectual argument. Going further to decry as Dr. Zombology did that we haven't all embraced the theology of her deconstructionist movement and worn our own hair shirts is not intellectual argument.
I've made none of these arguments.
It is from your non-intellectual arguments that we conclude that people who use the word "niggardly" are racist and should be fired.
Anon you're behaving like a hysteric. This has no logical connection whatever to anything I said.
I love your inversion and projection that somehow I am the one against free speech because I stand up to object your label of racism on anything your little winky dink may point to.
Have you ever bothered to look up the definitions of the words you toss around?
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 29, 2007 10:33:39 PM
Sanpete, your last post cleared up a lot of my confusion. It's only at the end I run into problems.
One reason to preserve the distinction is that negligence is typically not regarded as having the same culpability as irrational prejudice and hatred.
There was a song in the Broadway musical (with puppets) Avenue Q entitled "Everyone's a little bit racist." (google it it's hilarious) that pretty convincingly reverses that. If subconscious bigotry is so very omnipresent as it seems to be, then our culpability is not in having it but in our negligence in dealing with it. It's a pretty common social convention that racism among older folks, at least in a private setting, isn't sanctioned as harshly as that in younger adults--and I think this reflects an intuition that younger people are more culpable for racism than the aged--it takes a greater degree of moral negligence to be a young racist today than it did decades ago.
One reason is that prejudice and hatred are directed against people in a way that negligence per se isn't. (Negligence can be combined with or caused by prejudice or hatred, of course.)
And, I'd argue, prejudice and hate can be caused by a lack of moral diligence. Moreover, determining which causes which in any given situation doesn't seem like a useful exercise. Though this argument has been interesting, it also seems like "Resident Evil 5 is that-a-way", so to speak. It's unlikely that some Japanese dude under KKK robes is trying to start a race riot. It's unlikely that subconscious racism plays no role in a video game apparently inspired by Black Hawk Down, as Tyro referenced.
Posted by: Consumatopia | Jul 29, 2007 10:35:58 PM
That's not godwin like shaming, like calling someone a racist clearly is, that's just mockery.
Fair enough, but comparing someone to a Cultural Revolution group mentor definitely seems like the godwin kind.
Posted by: Consumatopia | Jul 29, 2007 10:39:46 PM
Except that intention is used as a means for derailing any fruitful discussion of race in our society.
That's kind of what I meant by red herring. We might be getting confused because our postings are staggered and asynchronous, but I'm mostly in agreement with you. I succumbed to a minor confusion as to who's confounding and who's maintaining which distinctions.
Posted by: Consumatopia | Jul 29, 2007 10:54:48 PM
anon, you're the only one who repeatedly says "zombology" (9 times by my count). You have a problem, and you really aren't able to pay attention. Plus, your arguments are consistently vapid. You have a hysterical fixation where when people point out that something has a lot of racist imagery to insist on shutting down the discussion by saying this is like wanting to drag people off to reeducation camps. You're yet more evidence for the maxim that "I'm not politically correct" is just code for "I like to make an ass out of myself."
Sorry to hear it gets you upset when people point out the racist imagery and language used. I suggest you come up with some other, more productive way to deal with the discomfort this causes you rather than resort to hysteria and comparisons to re-education camps.
Posted by: Tyro | Jul 29, 2007 10:55:24 PM
Sanpete, it's pretty obvious what everyone is saying about the use of racist imagery and the fact that these racial prejudices aren't necessarily verbalized, but display themselves anyway. I don't even know why you're bothering to pick a fight over the matter. It seems what you're saying is that it's not fair to call something soaked in racism, "racist," simply because the creators don't have the same level of moral culpability that, say, Bull Connor or Strom Thurmond did.
What a lot of people seem to be confusing is legal consequences (proving, say, racist intent on the part of an employer) vs. media/books/stories/films/art that is "racist." Creating art that is racist is not against the law. As a consequence, we don't have to go through divining the intent of the author when pointing out the racist undertones present in a certain work of art (like the aforementioned video game) and come up with evidence that accords with standards of a court of law. We need merely draw the comparison between the work of art and how it exploits and parallels real-life racist events or comparable racist images.
This reminds me of when Greg Easterbrook wrote an essay criticizing Hollywood media moguls the fact that, despite their Jewish background and the fact that they should understand suffering, cared only about money and profits. Now, really, I don't think that Greg Easterbrook is an anti-semitic racist. However, as a writer, he should have enough literary sense to realize that he should not be evoking images of "money grubbing Jews." Slate described this very appropriately as the "witless embrace of loathsome cultural stereotypes," and I think that assessment was right on the mark. It is fair for us to criticize an essay as being "racist" even if the racist imagery in question was the result of being neglectful. The writer in the case I mentioned didn't think before he wrote-- and as a writer he should have known better.
In any case, look at Ezra's words in the blog post: he wrote "The trailer for the new Resident Evil ... is about the most racist thing I've ever seen." He didn't call the creators or writers of the trailer or the game "racists." He was saying that the trailer itself was a piece of racist media. I really don't see how one can dispute that. JonO pointed out a relevant comparison-- if the game involved using a firehose to push black zombies off a bridge, I'd say the same thing. The question is, would you take issue with firehosing a hoard of black zombies off a bridge or shooting at rock-throwing zombies in Hebron?
Posted by: Tyro | Jul 29, 2007 11:14:42 PM
Okay thought experiment for you folks that think that by calling this game racist you are protecting free speech while I am trying to shut speech down by calling your acts a godwinning and saying that in your way lies the Cultural Revolution.
You are right, I am wrong. Ezra was correct in saying this trailer is racist. It is.
What should we do with this racist trailer and this racist game?
Come on, all you free speech protectors. We all acknowledge the trailer, the game, the creators, the society, we are all racist and the problem is how we refuse to deal with it.
What should be done about this trailer and this game? Do note we all agree it the most racist thing that Ez has ever seen.
Please explain, please reference the prior four games, and please explain how you are protecting freedom of speech. Try to explain how what you are doing is different than advocating speech and thought codes.
Posted by: anon | Jul 30, 2007 1:45:58 AM
Sanpete/Consume
Forgive me if the late entry has lead me to miss an answer to this. I don't think that you have really defined very well what the consequences should be once one has identified the racism of the types described. If institutional racism persisted through mere negligence, or if a policy had the effect of reducing the proportion of benefits going to persons of a historically disadvantaged group below their percentage of the population, would the case for corrective action be any weaker because neither was substantially connected to present racist intent by any individual?
The distinctions of intent are meaningful if we wish to impose an individual sanction, but this is a limited and shrinking portion of the problems of racial inequality confronted in our society. I wonder what the support for affirmative action would be if none of its opponents believed that it functioned as an accusation of racism against those charged with directing the institutions using it.
Anon
Since we've agreed by hypothesis that it's racist (I don't know or care if that's true) a good response would be to avoid seeing the film, and to encourage others to voluntarily do the same. Have I thereby sufficiently hidden my Junior Thought Police Credentials?
Posted by: RW | Jul 30, 2007 1:59:27 AM
I'd say that people who find the game objectionable should make a complaint to the company in question and not buy the product. They should also let their friends, neighbors and family know about it so they can make up their minds as well.
Then let the market sort it out.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 30, 2007 2:16:41 AM
Except that intention is used as a means for derailing any fruitful discussion of race in our society. Any time racism is raised in the discourse it quickly devolves into questions of intentionality, just as it has in this thread.
I agree in part, WBR, but these are two different things, discussions of race and of racism. This discussion went to questions of what you call intention because the charge was racism. Had the claim been that the game would appeal to racists, offend blacks, and otherwise worsen race issues, it would have been a different discussion. I'll say more about that below.
As I've been saying, my view is that racism doesn't depend on conscious intent. Irrational prejudice or hatred don't depend on conscious intent.
Treating racism as though it were an exclusively spiritual, as opposed to a social malady has been, in my opinion, a direct cause of our failure to cure the systemic ills that it has produced. As long as we behave as though having a "pure" heart renders one incapable of commiting a racist act or enabling racism, we aren't likely to make much headway.
Not sure how you intend this to apply to the discussion overall, but it isn't implied in using the word as I've outlined. Quite the opposite. I agree with most of what you say, but I'm not sure I agree with some of what you seem to draw from it.
Consumpatopia, it's a good point that negligence is sometimes more culpable than prejudice, but in general it's the other way. In regard to your example, even if we're all a little racist (let's say), I think most of us are reasonably mindful about it, and not really unreasonably careless. Negligence may play a role in more serious racism, but by itself it isn't typically harmful as prejudice and hatred are.
I still think the difference between negligence and prejudice/hatred is important for the other reason I mentioned as well, and that the kind of evil involved is somewhat different, the latter being directed against people.
This reminds me of a further point, that the core idea of racism has long been about wrongful discrimination on the basis of race. I'm trying to preserve that core. Someone who treats everyone poorly without respect to race might very well be racially insensitive, and culpably so, but not a racist. When you consider that person racist because of his general insensitivity, because the effects are like those of racism, you take another step away from that core idea.
As a practical matter, each step away from the core of the concept invites more controversy about the terminology rather than about whether the act in question is right or wrong, and what should be done about it. This relates to WBR's point. We might want to expand the definition anyway, so as to stigmatize the behavior more effectively, but that should be weighed against the other practical effects (along with some linguistic pain!).
Even if you want to broaden the idea to include negligence, that might still allow for cases of insensitivity that aren't negligent (depending on how you understand insensitivity).
To get back to the video game, we can make a strong case for racial insensitivity, and probably negligence in regard to that, and we can build a probable case for some racist influence (in the more narrow sense), as you say. But the easiest and perhaps most useful thing to say is that it' appears to be a really bad idea, and needs to be fixed. I agree with WBR that can be urged by complaints, editorials, boycotts, and so on, all of which are perfectly legitimate within the bounds of free speech and commerce.
If institutional racism persisted through mere negligence, or if a policy had the effect of reducing the proportion of benefits going to persons of a historically disadvantaged group below their percentage of the population, would the case for corrective action be any weaker because neither was substantially connected to present racist intent by any individual?
No. The case for moral condemnation of some of the people might be affected, but not the case for changing it, as I think you're saying, RW.
It seems what you're saying is that it's not fair to call something soaked in racism, "racist," simply because the creators don't have the same level of moral culpability that, say, Bull Connor or Strom Thurmond did.
Tyro, you may not have read all of my posts in this long thread. I haven't been saying that, and have made it clear that, for example, racist images are racist regardless of the intent of the artist.
I don't see the problem you do in disputing the racist nature of the trailer, for the reasons given in the thread. The main complaint would be that we don't know if it fits the standard meaning of the word in that it doesn't (as far as we know) involve irrational prejudice or hatred.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 30, 2007 2:45:00 AM
Delagar got a PhD in English Literature while believing that the British Empire was collapsing in 1897, and that Jonathan Harker and Mina Murray represent the working class.
That must be the grade inflation I hear so much about.
Posted by: ajay | Jul 30, 2007 10:20:19 AM
Delagar got a PhD in English Literature while believing that the British Empire was collapsing in 1897, and that Jonathan Harker and Mina Murray represent the working class.
Well, to be fair, literature isn't history or sociology, although a lot of po-mo theorist tend to overlook that fact when constructing their intricate theoretical designs. That's one of the annoying aspects of that particular school. They're so focused on rooting out the "essentialism" of others they tend to overlook it in themselves. Likewise, they're so habituated to treating texts as infinitely malleable in their meaning that the attitude can spill over into how they treat other subjects, forgetting that life isn't literature.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 30, 2007 11:18:25 AM
Since we've agreed the trailer and game are racist and that the problem is that we as society are racist and don't do enough to stop it, I have to say RW I find your response rather tepid. It sounds as though you are a racism enabler.
I'd say that people who find the game objectionable should make a complaint to the company in question and not buy the product. They should also let their friends, neighbors and family know about it so they can make up their minds as well.
Then let the market sort it out.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 30, 2007 2:16:41 AM
Terrific! People who found the game objectionable but hadn't purchased it should be encouraged to boycott the game, write the company and tell their friends.
Yes WB Reeves, I take it all back. You are a defender of freedom of speech. And as I said to RW, I find your faith in the marketplace endearing but your let the market sort it out wrt racism rather weak.
We all agree the game is racist, but we're not going to demand that ToysRUS, Target, and Wal*MART refuse to stock it? We're not going to write the Senate and House Commerce Committees? We're not going to write our newspapers and alert them to this situation? We're not going to have a game burning? We're not going to speak to the stockholders? We're not going to write to the Game Ratings Board (whoever they are?)
That's amazing -- cause that's what I would have done.
So I beg all of your forgiveness. It is good to find people that have such faith in the marketplace that it can do away with racism for us.
Posted by: anon | Jul 30, 2007 3:13:37 PM
It's too bad Resident Evil 5 isn't about a white guy killing straw men instead of black men, because then anon could be the star.
Posted by: Zack | Jul 30, 2007 3:42:48 PM
Anon, you're getting progressively more childish. Your question wasn't about solving the problem of racism in toto, it was about this particular game. Not only can you not be trusted to not misrepresent the arguments of others, evidently you can't even keep track of your own arguments.
BTW, a boycott is a perfectly appropriate market mechanism for registering consumer preferences. If you want to organize one, be my guest. Certainly people have every right to complain to retailers if they choose, although if your boycott were successful it wouldn't be necessary.
Of course, some people have the warped notion that free speech requires not only no criticism of such speech but active support of such by those who disagree with it. Glad to know you're not among that crowd.
The bonfire bit is way too 1936 for me though.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Jul 30, 2007 3:57:41 PM
